Kathryn - 2/2/2011

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Emma's Imagination on Sky 1's Must Be The Music and was over the moon that she won. Her voice was something else and her lyrics the kind that can tansport you out of the mundane and into something a little more exciting. She has really got a handle on how to deliver escapism for her listeners. I downloaded both of her competition tracks during the live semi-finals and found them creeping on to my i-pod with increasing regularity. And then, finally, the anticipation was over and I had access to a whole album... And there, for me at least, the fairytale ends. The beauty of Emma's Imagination came from the raw energy of Emma and her guitar, which seemed on TV almost an extension of her. But the album has been engineered to the point that Emma's uniqueness has been obliterated and even her voice doesn't sound as good; in fact, there are a couple of tracks where I'm fairly certain she's out of tune. I would quite happily have stopped on a windy, rainy, dismal Glasgow street to listen to Emma as she busked. I probably would even have thrown money in her hat (or guitar case or whatever!), but this album is not one that I would even stop scrolling down a playlist for. Perhaps if I hadn't seen the show and witnessed the startling potential, I wouldn't have been so disappointed...